In practising ball games, such as golf, it is commonplace to use a considerable number of balls, for example for performing a succession of practice strokes. These balls must therefore subsequently be retrieved, and it has already been proposed to provide a device for picking them up in the form of a tube of plastics material which is substantially circular in cross-section, adapted to the size of the balls it is intended to be used with, over the majority of its length but is of non-circular section at least at one end, so that a ball can enter the tube by such end only by deformation of the material of the tube. In order to pick up a ball resting on the ground, the user holds the device with its non-circular end downwards and places such end on the ball. Thereupon, downward pressure on the tube forces the non-circular end over the ball which is retained in place by the resilience of the material of the tube. This operation is repeated for successive balls, entry of each of which serves to cause the preceding balls to rise within the tube.
For such known devices to be of practical utility they have to be of an appropriate length such that they will hold a useful number of balls and can be used without the need to bend down, and usually, therefore, for golfing use they are of such a length as to be able to hold at least twenty golf balls. Twenty golf balls have a considerable weight and accordingly the non-circular end of the tube has to retain the lowermost ball with sufficient force to prevent the weight of some twenty (or more) balls thereabove causing the balls to drop out of the tube. Therefore the shape of the non-circular end of the tube has to be such as to require substantial force to be overcome for each ball to enter the tube. As a consequence the device is not easy to use and in fact frequently women find it impossible to use.
An object of this invention is to provide a ball pick-up device wherein this difficulty is obviated.